What can we learn about talent mobility from the man who accidentally coined the phrase ‘The Great Resignation’?

Not many people can say that an off-handed comment they made turned into one of the most talked-about phrases of the year, but that’s what happened to Professor Anthony Klotz in 2021.

In an interview with a Bloomberg journalist, Klotz, who was an Associate Professor of Management at Texas A&M University at the time, warned that a ‘Great Resignation’ was looming.

“I was surprised and terrified at the same time because I’d made a big, grand prediction about the labour market and there was no evidence of it happening at that time,” says Klotz, who is now an Associate Professor of Organisational Behaviour at UCL School of Management in London.

“I didn’t give any thought to the fact that I’d used that phrase in the interview, so when the reporter contacted me and told me it was going viral, I couldn’t grasp it. I thought, ‘This will blow over in a week or two.’ And now it’s [two years] later and we’re still talking about it.”

As we now know, Klotz’s prediction did eventuate. In 2021 and 2022, swathes of employees across the globe threw in the towel. This wasn’t just a lucky guess on Klotz’s part – he has been studying the ways employees resign for years. So who better to speak to about what we can expect from talent mobility in 2023?

People feel different about quitting now

Pre-pandemic, the idea of quitting a job sent many people into a nervous tailspin. That’s understandable. Good managers have usually invested a decent amount of time and money in their employees’ development, so announcing a resignation could feel ungrateful or disrespectful.

But Klotz thinks the pandemic has changed the way some people think about resignations. The prolific nature of the mass exodus from the workforce gave a voice to employees who felt that the pandemic had fundamentally changed what they thought about work, life and the boundaries between the two.

“It was sort of taboo to talk about quitting and resignations before this,” says Klotz. “I think the reason it became so popular is because it gave a voice to individuals who felt like, ‘I don’t want to go back to how things used to be because I feel I’ve changed.’”

This could also be why we’re hearing more about phenomena such as ‘quiet quitting,’ where employees refuse to go above and beyond the minimum requirements of their jobs.

“There isn’t any data to back up that this is a trend. That being said, it completely stands to reason that it’s happening. Resigning isn’t a good idea for many people. Maybe they can’t find another good job, or they might be geographically isolated.

“So if people are in a situation where they can’t quit, reducing everything they do that goes above and beyond their job description is a sensible way to protect their wellbeing. 

“I’m confident that quiet quitting is happening, and it’s evidence that people are really reflecting on and renegotiating the boundaries between work and life right now.”

It’s not great that businesses have seen higher-than-normal rates of disengagement or turnover, he says, but the silver lining for HR is in the stories he’s hearing of HR leaders saying, “The CEO is actually listening to us now” in terms of designing work to be more sustainable and engaging.

“In 2019, the world of work was not sustainable from a human standpoint for a number of different reasons: hustle culture, burnout and underpayments,” he says. 

“Even though it’s not always pleasant to think about quitting, the nice thing is that this has opened up this opportunity to ask, ‘How do we make the world of work better?’ and it has given HR professionals a chance to have their voices heard.”

Read HRM’s article about three ways to fix the broken employee experience.

Talent mobility in 2023

When looking to the near future, Klotz says we can probably expect resignation numbers to slow (noting that his predictions are based on US data).

“I don’t think enough people are talking about this, but monthly resignation numbers [in the US] have plateaued for this entire year [2022]. Sure, they’ve plateaued at an elevated rate, but last year resignations were going up every month. That was the heart of The Great Resignation. We’re still seeing elevated churn, but we’re not continuing to move upward.”

Australia’s resignation history has been a little different to America’s in that the proportion of people switching jobs has been steadily declining since the late 1980s, and hit an all-time low of 7.6 per cent in February 2021. However, it spiked to 9.5 per cent in early 2022 – the highest rate since 2012.

So could Australia follow in America’s footsteps and see resignation rates start to even out? We can only make predictions at this stage.

“No one knows how this is all going to shake out and I’m weary of anyone who says they have all the answers.” 

However, there is some historical evidence to suggest we’re more likely to stay put during economically trying times. 

There was a drop in Australian job-switching behaviours in 2008, in line with the global financial crisis, and Klotz says it’s possible that Australia could see less movement in the talent market in 2023 with the potential of a recession on the horizon.

“When the economy is bad, people think more deeply and tend to hesitate before they quit,” he says. “But the other thing to consider is that organisations haven’t been sitting still over the last year and a half. Many of them are making changes. Many are increasing pay and benefits. In many cases, they have improved the employee experience by taking serious action to improve things like employee mental health and wellbeing.

“To say it’s the economy alone that’s reducing resignations discredits the great work companies have done over the last few years. Those two forces are working in tandem.”

Learn how to coach leaders to manage talent mobility risks and uplift capabilities in their teams with this short course from AHRI. 

Prevent a people emergency

While we remain unsure of exactly what 2023 could hold, it’s fair to assume we could be in for some people-related challenges as businesses try to prepare for economically rocky times. Skills shortages are likely to increase alongside huge workforce cuts, which we’re already seeing in swathes.

While these might be necessary moves for some businesses in order to remain profitable, those who are left behind can’t be ignored. Klotz says a key lesson from the pandemic years is that we need to redesign work to make room for other aspects of their lives.

“For the last couple of years, many organisations have been in firefighting mode. Operationally, they were just trying to make it through the pandemic, which led to putting people on the backburner. But now it’s a people emergency and some organisations aren’t thinking strategically about how to address it. Not because they’re not capable, but because it requires embracing more change and uncertainty.

“People used to arrange their lives around work. Now they want work to be arranged around their lives.”

“The tools from the future of work have been brought into the present, so leaders have more means to help people be their best selves at work, and in other parts of their lives.”

To embrace these tools, we need to reject the notion of conformity when designing talent experiences.

“In HR and compliance, there used to be this thinking that we have to treat everybody the exact same, otherwise there’s unfairness or a liability threat. That needs to go out the window in a lot of cases,” says Klotz.

“Each employee is different. Their life outside and at work is different. We need to make adjustments and have more bespoke career development plans. We have the capability to do that now.

“People are still sorting out what they want their life to be like post-pandemic. Individuals are more frequently weighing up what they want to do with their life and going searching for meaning.” 

The question now is, how will HR help them find it? 

A longer version of this article was first featured in the December/January 2023 edition of HRM Magazine.